New Generations
by Raberba girl
Summary: Modern AU about the dragons.
1. Born Unchained, chapter 1

_Born Unchained_ (rough draft)  
A DreamWorks' _How to Train Your Dragon_ fanfic series by Raberba girl

A/N: **This is an alternate universe. I'm not going to explain any more than that.**

 **All the children born in this story should still be around in stories that take place later** - **I'm just really bad about remembering to include them. *sweatdrop*** I'll try to insert them if/when I ever get around to editing the HSRMO stories properly.

 **PLEASE NOTE that "intersex" is the preferred term to use for humans, and "hermaphrodite" is a biological term used for non-human organisms.**

Chapter 1

As if the ordinary problems of integrating dragons into Berk society weren't bad enough, things went completely insane just a few weeks after the Red Death's defeat.

It started with a pair of Nadders who suddenly jumped on each other and had sex in public, seeming to not even notice all the stunned human and vaguely interested dragon witnesses. (As would later be discovered, most of the dragons in a flock were on the same mating schedule, but there were always some outliers who were 'off-schedule' for various reasons.) Hiccup was ordered to lecture the two Nadders about propriety. They simply stared at him with blank expressions, but he did his best despite the language barrier and then hoped that would be the end of it.

Days passed, and the dragons started getting more and more restless. There were a couple more public sex incidents - the dragons seemed to have vague inclinations to take themselves aside for copulation, but didn't put much effort into hiding themselves, and didn't seem to care at all who saw them.

As Hiccup was dragged into human meetings about what to do about this growing problem, the dragons were starting to have their own anxious meetings. This was the first time their flock was approaching a mating season outside the Red Death's control, the first time they were living in a physical world rather than a dream world, and the first time they would probably be expected to mate and gestate in their 'Berk bodies.' A lot of the worry, despite the indignant assurances of Toothless and his troop, was about how their new queen would handle the generations born under his authority. Most of the rest of the worry was by and for the Zipplebacks.

 _"We have no seeds!"_ a female/female pair said in distress, _"NONE! How will we impregnate our mate?!"_

 _"We have no eggs,"_ a male/male pair added in despair, _"no eggs for our mate to fertilize, what will we do?"_

Even male/female pairs didn't have an answer. _"My sibling-half will fertilize our mate's egg, but I can't! How can this be?! Our mate will give life to one of my eggs, but my sibling-half has_ _ **no eggs**_ _, how can this be?!"_

The Zipplebacks who most desperately wanted offspring decided to take no chances - they temporarily left Berk so that they would be in a dream world when their mating haze came upon them. Only one of the absent Zippleback pairs had human partners, so the rest of them were not missed.

None of the humans had any idea yet that this was going on. Hiccup was busy being harassed by scandalized parents (particularly after an incident that happened at the school), trying to keep his temper when he heard teenagers making fun of the indiscrete dragons, and trying to defend the dragons to his father. "Dad, it wasn't like they were trying to be lewd or whatever on purpose. They're _aliens_ , obviously they have different values than we do-"

"Just make them stop, Hiccup!"

Discouraged, Hiccup tried to get more insight from his own dragon. "Toothless, can't they just, you know, go home and have sex? We can tell them 'sex at home, not school,' right?"

"Do 'sex,' make good babies."

"...Okay, but have sex _at home_ , not at school. Sex at _home_ , NOT school."

Toothless frowned. "Why?"

Hiccup groaned silently. "I- I mean- Sex is, you know, private. Have sex when people _won't_ look at you and see you, and...and make fun of you."

Toothless was starting to seem agitated. "Sex is bad, Hiccup?! Sex babies is BAD?!" He hadn't thought that _any_ queen could be worse than the Red Death - but at least that tyrant had ALLOWED THEM TO HAVE CHILDREN. Were they now forbidden to reproduce?! Would their flock be forced to die out?!

"No," Hiccup said soothingly, "no, no, no, I'm sorry, I didn't mean- I just- Sex _in front of other people_ is bad." Hiccup wished he had more vocabulary to work with. "Sex _alone_ , in _private_ , is _good_ , okay?"

Toothless stared.

"Just tell them to have sex at home, okay? Sex at home. Okay?"

Toothless looked as if Hiccup had very politely asked him to buy the sun and give it to him as a Snoggletog present. "Sex home _only_?!" Then, in dream language, _"This queen is crazy, VERY MUCH CRAZY, when the mating haze comes on us we have to REMEMBER to go_ _ **all the way home**_ _to mate, what?! WHAT?! So much crazy queen!"_

"...Did I just ask you guys to do something impossible?" Hiccup guessed.

"MAKE BABIES!" Toothless screamed at him.

"Okay, okay, all right, I'm sorry! They don't have to go home. They can have sex in the middle of the street if they want, it's okay, I'll figure something out."

"BABIES, HICCUP QUEEN BABIES, AAAAAAHHHHHHH!"

"Calm _down_ , Toothless!"

Hiccup did not, in fact, figure anything out before mating season began in earnest.

Meatlug, the member of her troop most eager to procreate, was excited and giddy as she felt her body preparing itself. The night before the beginning of mating week, she took all her clothes off before she went to bed, hiding deep within her blankets so that Fishlegs, with his strange human fixation on clothing, wouldn't notice and make her put them on again. The minute she woke up around 3:00 a.m., fully caught up in her mating haze, she was out the door screaming to attract males before Fishlegs had even finished waking up. "Wha...? What's-? Meatlug, where are you going?!"

An hour later, the whole city was in utter chaos. Dragons were flying and running and shrieking and copulating all over the place. Meatlug was racing so quickly in her search for a mate that she didn't realize that she, a highly desirable female, was targeted by no less than three males following her trail, all strong candidates and all Matched to her. Instead, she seized Gronckle after Gronckle the instant she saw them (even some ineligible Gronckles and once, by accident, another female), crying _"Match?! Match?!"_ and instantly rushing on to the next every time they said _"No."_

As the sun rose, Meatlug became desperate. She no longer cared if her mate was Matched to her or not; she just wanted, needed, _babies to be growing inside her_. She seized a Gronckle by sense alone, so caught up in her mating haze now that she could barely see. _"MATCH?"_ she demanded.

 _"No, but-"_ the voice responded.

The 'but' was enough, and she already sensed that the person she held was an eligible male Gronckle. She shoved him down and started mating with him before he'd even finished giving permission. She didn't notice both of the remaining males that had targeted her finally give up when they realized that she was no longer eligible, and she certainly didn't notice the looks of disgust on their faces when they saw whom she had chosen.

Meatlug went still, panting, her mind finally returning to her as the mating haze cleared. She blinked down at her new mate, and was surprised at her choice: One Whose Breath Fells Enemies. Although he'd obviously been named after a great warrior, he himself was a runt, small and weak for a Gronckle, which was probably why he had been unmated even though he was a generation older than her. She would only be able to get two litters out of him, though she could always find a new mate for her third. She would not have chosen Axebreath if she hadn't been so desperate.

 _"B...babies?"_ he asked faintly, still looking stunned that any female at all, much less such a desirable one, had allowed him to sire her offspring.

Yes, that was the important thing. Meatlug quickly scrambled off of him and turned her attention inward. Very hesitantly, Axebreath reached to touch her belly. After a pause, Meatlug looked up and smiled at him. _"Yes. Four, I think."_ The number had been slightly disappointing at first, until she paid more attention and realized that four offspring per litter was apparently the limit for this body, so she had actually done quite well after all.

Axebreath looked _radiant_ , and in that moment, Meatlug felt a rush of affection for him. It wasn't his fault he was a runt, she was fertile enough to make up for his breeding deficiencies, and he seemed like he would be a responsible provider and a kind teacher for her children. Perhaps it hadn't been a mistake to take him as her mate after all.

 _"I will go back to my companion now, he probably misses me,"_ she explained.

Axebreath nuzzled her. _"Thank you for choosing me."_ Meatlug was charmed. She had never heard of anyone thanking his or her mate for the privilege of creating offspring together, and she found that she liked it. _"I will be a good papa to our offspring,"_ Axebreath promised.

 _"Yes!"_ Full of joy, Meatlug took to the air again and flew back to Fishlegs, eager to tell him of her success.

The rest of Meatlug's troop hadn't been so enthusiastic about procreating. Hookfang in particular had dressed in as many layers of clothing as he could and then insisted on going to sleep clinging to Snotlout, as if the annoyed and clueless human could protect him from what was coming. Hookfang woke up in a panic around 3:00 a.m., feeling the mating haze starting to descend on him. "SNOTLOUT! SNOTLOUT!" he screamed. Snotlout's resulting shriek of surprise pierced through the haze and provided a moment's respite.

"What is WRONG with you, you crazy dragon?! Let go of me!"

 _"You have to protect me you have to protect me, don't let them find me don't let me mate, please Partner please please please please...!"_

Unfortunately, Snotlout on his own was no match for a dragon, especially a terrified Monstrous Nightmare. It wasn't ten minutes before Hookfang, in desperation, accidently drew blood, and he hadn't even been fighting. Horrified and repentant and furious, Hookfang screamed a curse on humans with their stupidly soft flesh and fled away in search of Toothless.

The madness had begun by then. Hookfang ducked around dragons, shying away from the shrieks of female Monstrous Nightmares no matter how distant they were, and chanted Snotlout's name over and over again in a desperate effort to ward off the mating haze. He burst into the chieftain's house, where Stoick and Hiccup were frantically running around, both trying to get dressed as they yelled into their phones, and Toothless stood in the middle of the living room with an impatient expression.

 _"HELP ME,"_ Hookfang begged.

Toothless looked at him sympathetically. _"You don't want to mate?"_

 _"FIGHT ME."_

Toothless had just enough presence of mind to rush at Hookfang so forcefully that they were out of the house when they started fighting. Hiccup ran out after them, shouting, but Toothless ignored him in exasperation. Hookfang was strong to begin with _and_ was now resisting a mating haze, it was taking almost every ounce of Toothless's strength and concentration to limit the damage to them both, he didn't have _time_ to coddle his crazy idiot queen through a situation that a queen should already know how to handle.

Hiccup clawed his fingers through his hair in frustration as he watched Toothless and Hookfang apparently trying to take each other apart. The phone in his hand rang _yet again_ , and the only reason he answered it was because the ringtone was Astrid's.

"Ast-?"

 _"HICCUP, HE'S RAPING STORMFLY AND I CAN'T STOP HIM!"_

"Where are you?!"

o.o.o.o.o

Stormfly woke early, unable to sleep. She lay in bed hugging Astrid for comfort until she started to feel her mating haze descend. Since she had no strong feelings about offspring one way or the other, she simply undressed and then walked out into the street, neither seeking nor fleeing, making herself available to whoever chose to mate with her.

A male rushed at her, realized they weren't Matched, and rejected her; a second male later did the same. A third male, also not Matched, tried to mate with her anyway, but Stormfly didn't like him and fought him off. Then she heard a familiar voice and turned, happy to see her human friend. "Astrid that I like."

"Stormfly!" Astrid rushed up to her. "Why are you walking around naked?! Come on, let's go back home!"

"No."

" _Stormfly_. We need to get out of this madhouse, and we need to get you some clothes."

"No home. No clothes," Stormfly said in frustration, wishing she knew more human words.

"Stormfly! This is _insane_ , why is this happening?! You've all gone crazy!"

Before Stormfly could respond, she went stiff as she sensed a Matched male approaching. She was seized from behind and shoved against a wall to face the male who'd targeted her, a strong and handsome Nadder named One Who Strikes The Heart. _"Match?"_ he demanded, too caught up in the mating haze to be certain of what was quite obvious to Stormfly's less overwhelmed senses. He was a fantastic physical specimen, and though his touch was harsh with urgency, his eyes, clouded as they were with the haze, looked directly into hers, which erased the last of her hesitation.

 _"Yes."_ Suddenly burning with the urge to bear his offspring, she clutched at him as he pressed closer and opened her legs to receive him.

"GET AWAY FROM HER!"

Both of them were shocked to be interrupted. Astrid beat at Truespear until he fell away, staring and helpless and incomplete. Both he and Stormfly were too stunned by the outrageous behavior of her friend to react.

"Stormfly, run!"

Stormfly heard the words but could not perceive them. Her body _ached_ with the need to be filled with new life, and a whine of outrage started in her throat.

Hearing it, Truespear was spurred back into action. He knocked Astrid away and threw himself on his new mate. Stormfly offered her body to him again but was distracted by her friend's pain and distress. She stared at Astrid, who was now bleeding a little and crying and clutching her phone.

"Astrid," Stormfly whispered. She turned to her new mate to ask him to let her go, but saw that he was still deeply lost in the haze and could not be reached. She waited until he finished inseminating her, but did not stop to assess the results or speak to him. Ignoring his plaintive inquiries, she went to her friend and put her arms around her. "Astrid?"

"Oh, Stormfly! Stormfly...!"

o.o.o.o.o

Hiccup raced on foot to the park, wincing as he ran past dragons copulating or chasing each other or occasionally fighting, some of them being yelled at by humans.

He quickly found Astrid on a bench, still dressed in nightclothes and sobbing in Stormfly's arms. The Nadder, like most of the other dragons, was completely naked, but she didn't seem to be hurt. She looked only concerned for her human, and Hiccup suddenly felt sick as he wondered if he'd misunderstood, if it had been Astrid who'd been raped. He approached cautiously, reaching out a shaking hand to his girlfriend. "A...Astrid...?"

"Hiccup!" she wailed, immediately throwing herself into his arms instead. Stormfly came to embrace both humans, sandwiching Astrid between them. "I couldn't stop him...he just _grabbed_ her and shoved her up against the wall and started- I couldn't- YOU STAY AWAY FROM US!"

Hiccup jumped, then followed Astrid's furious glare and saw an approaching male Nadder, also naked, stop in his tracks and quickly retreat again.

Truespear did not leave entirely. He perched on an empty bench and called out beseechingly to Stormfly, who ordered him to wait as she tended to her human.

Hiccup looked at Stormfly, who turned back to croon at Astrid. "Stormfly? Are you okay?"

"My Astrid is sad," Stormfly said in distress.

Hiccup gently let go of Astrid so he could drape his jacket over Stormfly's shoulders, thread her arms through the sleeves, then take the Nadder's face in his hands to catch her attention. "Stormfly, Astrid is sad because she thinks you're hurt. Are you hurt?"

"No!" Stormfly cried, sounding genuinely surprised.

Hiccup let her go and looked at Astrid. "Astrid, I think there's been a misunderstanding."

"A _misunderstanding_?! He _raped_ her! He _raped_ my dragon and I want-!"

"Hey, hey, Astrid, sshh! Hold on, let's ask Stormfly first before we jump to any conclusions. Stormfly? Did Truespear attack you?"

"Truespear my mate."

"...Did you _want_ him to be your mate?"

To Hiccup's relief, Stormfly smiled. "Very good babies," she cooed. "That Truespear, good babies for us him me. And my Astrid."

Hiccup smiled back and then said to Astrid, "Astrid...I think it was consensual."

"You didn't _see_ it! He was _manhandling_ her, she didn't _want_ it-"

"Astrid, what I _have_ been seeing is a bunch of dragons acting like rabid animals who seem to calm down the minute they finish having sex. Look." He pointed at a pair of dragons across the park, who were now nuzzling and licking each other after having been snarling and screaming less than ten minutes before. "I think Stormfly's okay."

"This good thing, my Astrid," Stormfly said, her hands resting on her stomach.

Truespear dared to creep close again. Hiccup hastily got out of his way; Astrid shot him a dirty look, but didn't chase him off this time. _"Babies?"_ the Nadder asked anxiously.

Stormfly smiled proudly. _"Two,"_ she purred. _"One male and one female, I think."_

Truespear purred back in satisfaction and nuzzled her belly and then her face. _"I will be a good papa to our offspring."_

 _"Yes,"_ Stormfly agreed. _"Now go away and let me comfort Friend and her male."_

Truespear suddenly fixed Hiccup and Astrid with an interested look.

"You mate too," Stormfly said encouragingly, gesturing, wondering why in the world the two humans who had obviously been targeting each other for weeks now didn't look affected by the haze at all, despite the fact that they were standing so close and Astrid wasn't pregnant.

" _What_?!" Hiccup gasped.

"Us?! Stormfly, what-?!"

The red-faced humans were saved by the buzzing sound of an approaching Gronckle. "Fishlegs!" Hiccup called in relief.

Meatlug was now dressed in a bathrobe that Fishlegs had hastily provided for her. The moment she touched the ground, she and Stormfly ran to each other. _"Babies?!"_ they cried at the same time. _"Two!"_ Stormfly reported.

 _"Four!"_ They laughed and danced and embraced, sharing joy and congratulations. Truespear, losing interest now that his night's work was done, flew away to lie low for a while. He was claimed now, but the next several days would still be full of unmated females caught up in the haze, grabbing every male Nadder within reach to determine his eligibility, and it would be annoying to endure all that unnecessary manhandling. Better to hide until it was over.

Meanwhile, the three human teenagers were hastily exchanging news, then Hiccup took out his phone to look for Toothless and was surprised to find that the Night Fury and Hookfang were both in the training arena. "Let's all meet up there and try to figure out what to do." Hiccup called Snotlout and the twins, then made his own way to the arena along with Astrid, Stormfly, Fishlegs, and Meatlug.

They found Toothless there alone, curled up in front of the closed cell that had once imprisoned Monstrous Nightmares. "Toothless!"

Toothless immediately bounded to his feet and raced to greet his human. "Hiccup~!"

"Are you okay, bud?!"

"Okay."

"Where's Hookfang, isn't he here with you?"

"Hide."

The humans all looked around the arena in confusion before Hiccup focused on the Nightmare cell again. "Wait a minute." He went up to it and opened the door.

 _"STAY AWAY!"_ Hookfang howled from inside.

"...Hookfang?"

At the sound of his queen's voice, Hookfang burst into tears.

"Hookfang?" Hiccup cautiously entered and knelt down beside the Nightmare, who was huddled in a far corner of the cell. "Hey...hey, big guy," Hiccup said soothingly, stroking the dragon's heavily padded shoulder. "Are you okay? What's wrong?"

"No MATE, Queen!" Hookfang shrieked at him. "No mate! NO!"

"Okay, okay, no mate. You don't want to mate?"

Hookfang crawled onto Hiccup, nearly knocking him off balance, and buried his face in his chest.

"Um...okay..."

"Hiccup?" Fishlegs called tentatively, peering inside.

"We're okay," Hiccup called back. "Hookfang's just a little upset, but I think we're okay so far..."

Toothless flopped down on Hookfang's other side and patted his head. _"It's okay,"_ he crooned, _"Queen and me and our whole troop will protect you."_

 _"I don't want to make babies...I_ _ **don't want**_ _to make babies, it's_ _ **bad**_ _..."_

Toothless wondered if he should brag that _he_ was the only Night Fury in the whole flock and so didn't have to worry about stupid mating, but he finally decided that Hiccup wouldn't want him to provoke their distressed troopmate.

Astrid had just finished getting Stormfly dressed in an ill-fitting training outfit, with holes cut for the dragon's wings and tail, before Snotlout came running into the arena. "Hiccup! Hiccup! I can't find Hookfang!"

"He's in here," Hiccup called from the cell. "Didn't you try to track his chip?"

"What?" Snotlout peered into the cell. "HOOKFANG! What is wrong with you, man?" He raised his arm, but didn't have the chance to indignantly complain about the red scratches his dragon had earlier carved into his skin.

"SNOTLOUT, COMFORT ME." Hookfang pounced on his human, clutching him tightly.

"Ow! Let go!" Then, to Hiccup and Fishlegs with a big grin, "Hey, did you know there's naked chicks running all over town?"

Hiccup facepalmed and Fishlegs rolled his eyes, neither of them bothering to answer.

A minute later, Barf and Belch came running into the arena and into the closest cell, huddling together at the back of it. Before Hiccup could go to them, he was distracted by the Thorston twins parading in, both of them as naked as the dragons.

"Ruffnut!"

"Tuff, what are you _doing_?!"

Tuffnut waved his hand and announced grandly, " _We_ , my friends, are simply joining in Berk's brand new, time-honored tradition!"

"As our wise dragons have so boldly proclaimed," Ruffnut chimed in, "today marks the first annual Day of the Nude, to be celebrated-"

"SHUT UP AND PUT SOME CLOTHES ON."

The twins whined a lot, but were eventually bullied into compliance. By the time they were dressed and pouting, Barf and Belch seemed to have recovered, creeping back out of their cell and permitting Hiccup to drape some towels over them, though they refused to actually put any clothes on. They seemed tired and agitated, staying pressed close against each other and shying back against the walls.

 _"Baby?"_ Stormfly inquired.

 _"No. Our body is wrong, our bodies are wrong, we are frightened,"_ the Zippleback replied in unison, leaning into Meatlug when she sympathetically began to stroke their hair.

"Okay," Hiccup exhaled, feeling exhausted. "We're all here, so let's see if we can figure out WHAT IN THE WORLD is going on..."

In bits and pieces, coaxed out of their dragons with limited vocabulary and lots of outbursts, the humans were finally told that this was the first day of what was apparently going to be roughly a whole week of dragon mating. Most of the commotion was apparently from the teenage generation, who had to find mates and conceive their first set of offspring, and the older dragons who had lost their mates in the war and had to find new ones. Most of the already-mated dragons had probably already finished their business - they would have gone to sleep together the night before and awakened to mate without having to rush out into the streets.

"I guess the nudity does make sense," Fishlegs mused. "If you _know_ you're going to be, er, putting yourself on the market the next day, and the way they seem to kind of lose their minds until they, er, do their thing, it actually kind of makes _less_ sense to bother with clothes..."

"Yeah," Hiccup said, looking thoughtfully from the bundled-up Hookfang to the blanketed Zippleback. "But how come Barf and Belch are naked even though they seem like they don't really want to mate?"

That was when the dragons' general concern about the Zipplebacks came out. Hiccup tried to remember what that breed looked like in their homeworld - strange creatures like entwined eels - so he could sketch a picture. The dragons were eventually able to explain that Zipplebacks in their true form were simultaneous hermaphrodites, both male and female at the same time. Two Zipplebacks would mate by temporarily 'eating' or 'consuming' each other, as close as Hiccup and Fishlegs could figure out from the stilted explanations, which would result in a single offspring that was 'born' immediately at the conclusion with no gestation period.

However, in these 'Berk bodies' where biological sex was strongly compartmentalized, even the Zipplebacks themselves couldn't figure out how to mate, and it frightened some of them. Barf and Belch, though not opposed to creating offspring like Hookfang was, had become overwhelmed by anxiety when they were not immediately claimed, and were now afraid to venture out into the 'mating market' again.

"Okay," Hiccup said soothingly, "it's okay, you don't have to go out again yet. You have a whole week to figure this out, right? It'll be okay."

After that were less important details that fascinated Fishlegs and bored Snotlout, such as the mating haze (it only affected unmated dragons in proximity to potential mates, and could be resisted with great effort), the 'Matched' concept (Matched dragons were the most physically compatible, but most dragons could still mate even if they were not Matched), whether dragons were monogamous (yes; sort of; mostly), and how often mating season happened (about once every ten years for individual dragons). Hiccup would have liked to learn about it, too, but now that his friends' dragons were safe, he needed to start answering his father's phone calls and think about the city in general rather than just his own small group.

 _"HICCUP, I DON'T KNOW WHERE YOU ARE, BUT YOU NEED TO GET OUT HERE_ RIGHT NOW _,"_ Stoick bellowed through the phone, so loudly that Hiccup had to hold it at arm's length.

"Can I come with you to watch the naked chicks?" Snotlout asked, interested.

" _No_. You need to stay with Hookfang. Astrid, do you mind coming with me?"

Astrid looked at her partner. "How about it, girl? Are you feeling all right?"

"Go with my Astrid," Stormfly said, though she sounded a little worried.

"How about you, bud, are you okay?" Hiccup asked.

"No 'Night Fury,' _only_ me," Toothless said, sounding like he was boasting. "No bad females take _steal_ me away from my Hiccup!"

"Er...okay. Come on, then."

They flew back out into the thick of it, though things had calmed down slightly. _Slightly_. The more Hiccup paid attention, the more he realized that most of the dragons weren't really attacking each other, that their forcefulness was more from the urgency and clumsiness brought on by the haze than by anything else. Only the Nightmares were truly violent when they mated, and Toothless explained that their breed valued combat more than the others. Both females and males were expected to prove their aggression and defense in order to be considered worthy to bear or sire good offspring.

Once in midair and once on the ground, Stormfly got grabbed by Nadders who were so lost in their mating haze that they didn't realize for a minute that she was already claimed and pregnant. Astrid was furious, but the males were quick to rush off again as soon as they realized that Stormfly was ineligible.

"It's okay, Astrid. Here, Stormfly, stay between us; Toothless, warn off any Nadder who looks at us, okay?"

"Astrid not like them close to her Stormfly," Toothless purred.

"Not hurt, Astrid," Stormfly assured her, nestling in the middle of the group.

Hiccup soon discovered, to his fury, that the humans' organized efforts to control the chaos took the form of hunting down and shooting haze-caught dragons with disruptors. "WHAT ARE YOU _DOING_?!" he bellowed as Toothless and Stormfly screamed. "I TOLD YOU NEVER AGAIN, _NEVER AGAIN_ , WHY DO YOU STILL EVEN _HAVE_ DISRUPTORS, I THOUGHT YOU SAID YOU DESTROYED THEM ALL!"

"We're not hurting them, and we can't have them running amok-!"

"THEY'RE NOT DOING ANYTHING WRONG!" Hiccup was furious, and helpfully had an even angrier Night Fury and Deadly Nadder to back him up, as well as a trained warrior at his side. No one but his father put up much resistance when he seized control of the human side of the operations, and even Stoick's protests quickly became half-hearted in the face of Hiccup's iron resolve. "Get rid of those disruptors _right now_ and let them go, I am _so_ mad at you and we will DEFINITELY talk about this later. Tell all the humans to _stay inside_ and just _let_ the dragons do what they need to do, no school and no work today. Or the rest of the week. Non-lethal defense of property only, they're _not_ trying to hurt us, they don't _care_ about anything right now except having children!"

Under his orders, law enforcement was dispersed mostly to herd humans back into their homes and guard against accidental property damage. Hiccup assigned various people to work on schooling accommodations during the coming week for students who would be better off staying inside, alternatives for employees with essential jobs who couldn't afford to miss a whole week of work, establishing a few key routes for safe emergency transportation, the draft of a press release, the draft of a census sequence for the dragons to keep track of their reproductive status, and various other projects that he wished he himself could work on all at once.

"This is crazy, I wish I'd known about all this beforehand... Of _course_ their ten-year mark would hit _right_ at the worst time, wouldn't it, when we've only just started living together."

 _To be continued..._

Author's Notes: This story is an overgrown one-shot that I had to break into three chapters because it ended up being so long.

Again, **PLEASE NOTE that while "intersex" is the preferred term to use for humans, "hermaphrodite" is a biological term used for non-human organisms.** (Speaking of which, there are basically two kinds of the latter: sequential hermaphrodites like clownfish, who can change their sex, and simultaneous hermaphrodites like some types of snails, who are both male and female at the same time.)

I have had ideas for the HSRMO dragon procreation stories for at least a year and a half now, but I have no idea why I finally got around to writing the first story (and all the exposition it contains) this week. Possibly because it took me _this long_ to finish designing all the necessary new FCs. ^^; Ftr, I wrote the first draft of this fic with Meatlug's and Hookfang's mates being unnamed, then went back afterward and decided to just meld those characters with Axebreath and Butterfly from my other fics, since they fit decently enough and it's hard coming up with names for FCs. (I had been debating for a long time whether to make Butterfly Hookfang's mate or Fireworm's, but I guess Hookfang grabbed her first. :p)


	2. Born Unchained, chapter 2

_**Born Unchained**_ **, a DreamWorks'** _ **How to Train Your Dragon**_ **fanfic by Raberba girl**

 **Chapter 2 (rough draft)**

The next day brought a new slew of problems, the worst of which were the four people who had been arrested for trying to sexually assault female dragons. All the would-be victims had either fought off their attackers or been defended by astonished, enraged dragon witnesses, so now the arrested men were injured, two of them badly, and were calling for the execution of the dragons who'd hurt them. Perhaps not surprisingly, the men demanding such drastic measures were in the still large group of people who were angry and resentful about dragons becoming part of day-to-day life in Berk.

"Are you insane?" Hiccup raged, so angry when he'd heard the news that he'd come to deal with the men in person. "You know _exactly_ what would have happened to you if you'd tried this with human women, what makes you think this is any different just because-!"

"They were ASKING for it-!"

"THEY WERE TRYING TO HAVE CHILDREN." He had thought it was blindingly obvious by now that dragons apparently only mated with others of their own breed, and only to reproduce; that none of them would even consider having sex with a human. "You think they _wanted_ to be raped, especially by someone from a different _species_ -?!"

"Have you SEEN them, boy?! Parading around like that with the goods all on display-!"

"You don't even KNOW what you did wrong! You're so sick you don't even _know_ what you did wrong!"

Hiccup treated the matter exactly as if the victims had been human, ordering criminal charges to be pressed in each proven case (and all of the cases were proven, thanks to the fact that every incident had been recorded on multiple dragons' video logs). Restitution was to be made to the dragons regardless of any physical damage suffered by the humans, since the injuries were all caused in the victims' defense. Although Stoick, as chieftain, had the final say on hotly-contested court cases, he decided that in this situation, it would be best for him to quietly defer to his son's judgment.

Then came a grayer area as theft sharply increased, due to many of the new dragon fathers stealing food (usually with no attempt at stealth) to bring to their pregnant mates. Hiccup hurriedly set up a food distribution center for them, then organized dragon hunting parties in the forests around Berk so that they wouldn't be unfairly cutting into the humans' food supply. The dragons apparently didn't mind eating roasted game, even if it did seem odd for cooking fires and the smell of fresh venison and pork and even bear and squirrel meat to fill the otherwise modern city. Hiccup hoped it would tide them over until he could think of a better arrangement.

While Hiccup spent most of his time stressing out about the human side of things, the dragons were still having their own issues to deal with. By the second day, most of the obligatory and the less picky matings had been completed, so what remained were the dragons who wished to mate more strategically.

Strong candidates prowled the streets and often fought over shared targets. Other strong candidates who didn't want to mate, like Hookfang, alternated between fleeing and hiding, and were exhausted by constantly fighting off suitors or by fighting with friends and sympathetic flockmates in an effort to resist the mating haze. Weak candidates who were determined to mate also hunted, though they were often more desperate and self-sabotaging than their stronger counterparts. Although many dragons didn't care much about matings other than their own, there were some data collectors and some plain old busybodies who liked to go around, keeping track of who had mated with whom and what kind of offspring would result.

Collectively, there was still a lot of worry about the Zipplebacks. While all other copulations were noted with either mild interest or dismissiveness by most of the other dragons, each Zippleback mating drew an anxious crowd. Almost every single time, to the surprise and relief of all, successful conception was announced, though some still worried that something might go wrong before the babies were actually born. MF/MF mates realized that they'd have to physically stay together throughout the entire gestation period so that their offspring, growing in the wombs of both parents rather than just one, wouldn't be rent apart and killed. Several dragons who were too old to mate volunteered to perform any fatherly duties for these pairs that could not be done otherwise.

About halfway through the week, the Zipplebacks who had mated in their homeworld returned to Berk. All were mildly surprised when their live young became encased in hard-shelled eggs during the transition between worlds.

 _"These bodies can't survive if they're too young, they must grow in eggs until they're strong enough to hatch and live. It's good."_

 _"But must they hatch in Homeworld, or can they hatch here with no danger?"_ someone worried. _"They were already born safely, but now they're eggs again..."_

 _"Five months to wait,"_ another said soothingly. _"We won't worry for five months; we will let these eggs grow and_ _ **then**_ _worry if we should take them back to Homeworld to hatch or not."_

Barf and Belch gained enough courage to try again. Barf, wrapped in a blanket to comfort herself, also kept her arm wrapped around her sibling-half to comfort him. They moved slowly, advertising their availability tentatively, followed at a slight distance by Toothless, Meatlug, and Fishlegs (the others all had work elsewhere, and the twins had been warned away so that they wouldn't disturb their dragon during this stressful time).

About an hour later, Barf and Belch froze when they met the eyes of another Zippleback. The other was an MM pair of the same generation, and for about three minutes, the two dragons locked eyes as other dragons gathered to watch. The other Zippleback suddenly raced toward Barf and Belch, who cringed but did not flee or resist.

Both halves of the other Zippleback seized Barf, who went limp and dropped the blanket; there was a brief struggle, then the male with the less secure grip hissed and turned away to seize Belch instead. The two stared at each other in sudden confusion.

The first male gripped Barf's hair with both hands, and she focused on him again. _"Match?"_ he asked, forcefully but a bit uncertainly.

 _"No, but you may,"_ she responded in a neutral tone, not moving.

There was a very long pause as Barf and Belch waited and the other Zippleback considered. The second male tried to take hold of Barf again, finally circling around in frustration so that he held her from behind as his sibling-half clutched her from the front. Her eyes slid to Belch's and then closed. Belch clasped her hand.

 _"Not Matched,"_ the other Zippleback finally decided, releasing her and hurrying away. The watching dragons sighed and dispersed. Barf and Belch stepped close together in an odd, full-body gesture to reassure each other, as their troopmates hurried up to them. "Are you all right?" Fishlegs asked urgently. "Are you hurt?"

"Not hurt," Barf murmured. She and Belch gratefully leaned into Meatlug's embrace.

"Were you uncomfortable? Were you scared?" Fishlegs persisted. "Did you not like them, or him, or...?"

 _"Are we Matched to_ _ **anyone**_ _in this horrible body/bodies?"_ Barf murmured to her brother.

 _"Oh, yes!"_ Meatlug answered at once. _"There have been three Matched matings for one-who-is-twos."_

 _"Only three?!"_

Discouraged again, Barf and Belch returned to the arena to hide.

Meanwhile, Hookfang was getting desperate. He had taken to carrying around Snotlout like a comfort toy or a talisman, and Snotlout had gotten too tired to protest. The Nightmare started hiding among groups of already-mated or older dragons, who obligingly hid him and protected him and gave him a bit of respite, but the pursuing females always found him.

Sometimes Hookfang would take refuge with Hiccup, and if Hiccup was forceful enough, the hunting females would hiss and reluctantly turn away when their queen ordered them to. Toothless, as a sympathetic fellow mate-avoider, was also usually willing to fight Hookfang and drag him out of that awful mating haze whenever it became overwhelming.

Unfortunately for Hookfang, the females did catch him sometimes. He fought fiercely, and even when five females ganged up on him and managed to subdue him, he screamed so desperately that they hesitated. Even they balked at actual rape, and Hookfang made it quite clear that he absolutely _did not_ give permission to be mated with. _"NO BABIES, NO BABIES, NONE NONE NONE NONE!"_

 _"Silly One With Hooked Fangs,"_ crooned the one poised most threateningly over him, _"I am good and strong, you are good and strong-"_

 _"NO! NO! NO! NO!"_

 _"You are so selfish!"_ they all screamed back at him in fury. _"Your good strong body, you won't give it to any offspring, you will deny our next generation?!"_

 _"MY BODY DIES WITH ME! YOU CAN'T HAVE IT, THEY CAN'T HAVE IT, YOU CAN'T YOU CAN'T YOU CAN'T YOU CAN'T, I HATE YOU!"_

It got worse and worse as more strong Nightmares were claimed, and he, highly desirable and still unmated, became an increasingly valuable prize. His body started to fall asleep even when he hadn't intended to, and then his suitors would chase him in his dreams and he would fight back in his dreams. He began to cry and couldn't stop crying, clinging blindly to anyone who offered him comfort or safety or the least bit of relief, cursing his own body and wishing hard that the end of the week would come and rescue him from this nightmare.

Barf and Belch were on the verge of deciding to mate with the next eligible Zippleback they saw, regardless of compatibility, when they suddenly shot to their feet as if pulled by marionette strings. Another Zippleback had tracked them to the arena. The rest of their troop watched, the humans with varying emotions and the dragons eagerly, as the FF pair stared intently at Barf and Belch, lashing their tails. Their name was Ones Who Chirp And Twitter. _"Match?"_ they growled.

 _"Yes,"_ Belch hissed back, leaping at them. He caught Chirp, who clung to him as he began to mate with her; Twitter and Barf were embracing when Barf suddenly collapsed in her arms. Barf revived slowly, shook her head, then grabbed her brother as the other female prowled around their mating halves, hissing impatiently. Belch finished and seemed to become slow and heavy for a minute, Barf looking half-conscious as she leaned against him. Twitter pushed at Belch until she could mate with him, and he stared into her eyes. Barf, alert again, seized Chirp and looked intently at her belly. _"B...Baby?"_ Chirp stammered, looking dazed, but no one answered.

Twitter finished and crawled to her sister's side, the two huddling close and shivering. Barf and Belch, looking concerned, knelt on either side of them, touching them gently. After a while, Belch asked softly, _"Baby?"_

Both halves of his and Barf's new mate looked astonished. _"Yes!"_ they exclaimed, prompting delighted cheers from Barf and Belch's dragon troopmates. Then, in confusion, _"Baby?"_ All four of them looked at Barf's belly, then at Belch's.

Still confused, Barf and Belch touched their mate's bellies. _"In here only, but it's okay...?"_

 _"A [red] baby, here and here,"_ Chirp and Twitter purred in unison. Both halves of both Zipplebacks stood and briefly twined around each other in an embrace that was like a brief dance, then Chirp and Twitter went away, satisfied, holding hands.

Barf stepped into her brother's arms and he held her close, both of them giggling in relief. _"Matched,"_ Barf whispered affectionately.

 _"I_ _ **told**_ _you,"_ Meatlug laughed, hugging them, _"there was a Matched mate for you, there is a good baby for you, this body is strange but not bad,_ _ **all**_ _bodies can mate and have offspring even if they're silly."_

 _"But our baby is still_ _ **inside**_ _them, our baby must still be_ _ **born**_ _, maybe the bad thing will happen later instead of now...!"_

 _"Hush,"_ Meatlug soothed. _"You are good and healthy, your baby will be good and healthy and will grow up and find a good healthy mate and have good healthy offspring."_

On the fifth day, Hookfang was at his limit. He lay dully in his cell, his spirit broken despite the fact that Hiccup had written temporary sequences to prevent the Nightmare's most persistent suitors from entering the arena.

Snotlout had put his foot down, so it was currently Meatlug lying with Hookfang in her arms, murmuring comfort to him. _"It's okay to be scared, our good strong troop will protect you, our poor One With Hooked Fangs..."_

 _"I'm not scared,"_ he said dully. _"I'm strong. I'm good."_

 _"Yes, dear."_

Stormfly came in to check on them. _"Why don't you want to mate?"_ she asked curiously. _"I was a little scared, too, but it wasn't bad - my very good mate caught me, and now we will have very good offspring."_

 _"Scared he'll get clawed up by his females,"_ Toothless said, poking his head into the cell.

 _"I'm not scared of getting hurt!"_ Hookfang yelled, though he only had the energy to shout rather than move. Meatlug's hand stroking his hair didn't waver. _"I'm a_ _ **fireskin**_ _, I'm not scared of pain..."_

 _"Maybe you're scared of babies,"_ Belch mused, sitting comfortably just outside the cell.

 _"I'M NOT SCARED OF WEAK STUPID BABIES!"_

 _"Not_ _ **any**_ _babies,"_ Barf clarified. _"You're scared of_ _ **your**_ _babies."_

Hookfang started to cry.

 _"Why?"_ Toothless asked in surprise. Although he himself was opposed to mating, it was for a different reason.

 _"I will be a bad sire to my babies,"_ Hookfang sobbed. _"Don't know how to teach them raise them care about them, HER THAT I HATE, that MONSTER queen 'Red Death,' She tortured me broke me ruined me, my horrible body that I hate is strong and they want it, but_ _ **inside**_ _I am still broken, broken, horrible bad self to make babies, horrible bad weak broken babies...!"_

Every single one of the dragons was now crying and shivering, Meatlug and Stormfly with their arms desperately wrapped around themselves as if they could protect their unborn children from the torment in their memories.

Hiccup came into the cell. "Hey, I don't know what's going on here, but I think you all need a break." He was surprised when every single one of them seized him and tried to cling to him in a miserable huddle. "Oooorrrr...we can do this. Okay."

Toothless was the one who recovered first. _"New queen now,"_ he sad raggedly. _"SHE that monster queen is DEAD, now we have this VERY GOOD new queen, He will help us. We will have good babies for Him."_

 _"He will chain our offspring,"_ Hookfang wailed, _"He's kind but He still loves these chains, He will bind our offspring when they're born and we will never, never be free...!"_

Hiccup wished he knew what they were talking about, because the anguished expressions on all their faces as they looked at him were unbearable. "Hookfang," he said gently, "what's wrong? Whatever it is, it's okay, we'll figure something out."

Toothless leaned against him. "Hiccup...we love You but broken. You save us but broken. _She_ is still here, Hiccup." He laid a hand over his heart. "Memory, hurt..."

"She?"

" _Her_ that Red Death," Toothless hissed.

"She's dead, Toothless," Hiccup said firmly, wondering what this had to do with mating.

Eventually, Meatlug said, _"He is our queen, we must trust Him. If He chains our offspring, we will not resist. He has been gentle with us and our chains, He will be gentle with our offspring, too."_

 _"I'd rather die!"_ Hookfang screamed.

 _"...You gave yourself to Him,"_ Stormfly reminded him softly. _"When He set us free...you offered yourself to Him, you saw His heart as He freed you. He loves these 'chip' 'computer' things like toys, but He hates chains."_

 _"He doesn't know they're the same thing!"_ Toothless realized incredulously. Hiccup was both his other half and his queen, so he had quickly stopped minding and had gotten used to the frequent and casual invasions of his very self, but now the invasions made a lot more sense. He wondered if Hiccup would still delve into him with such self-assured entitlement if he truly understood what he was doing.

 _"We named Him One Who Breaks Chains,"_ Barf and Belch said. _"Before we knew His name, we named Him One Who Breaks Chains because that is who He_ _ **is**_ _."_

 _"...I still don't know how to take care of babies,"_ Hookfang said in a low voice. _"All I know how to do is protect. I can't teach or help or provide, I can't even love my human the way you all love yours, I'm a good 'monster nightmare' but I'm a bad dreamling..."_

 _"Silly,"_ Meatlug chided. _"You are a good dreamling, and we are your troop. We will help you."_

 _"Yes,"_ Stormfly agreed.

 _"Yes,"_ Toothless added.

 _"Of course,"_ Barf and Belch huffed.

Hookfang slowly rose to his feet and said apprehensively, _"I will mate."_

Hiccup looked at him. "Fang? You feeling better now?"

"Females, mate," Hookfang hissed, crouching a little, his eyes unfocusing as he started to give in to the mating haze.

"Uh...okay. Are you sure, Hookfang? You really want to mate now?"

"YES," Hookfang bellowed, and rushed out of the arena. Everyone quickly followed.

There were three suitors left, two Matched to Hookfang and one not Matched but desperate. They descended on him when he was only a few steps out of the arena and, between the three of them, they managed to rip all his layers of clothes to shreds in less than a minute. Panting and mostly-naked and a little scratched up, Hookfang waited as the females battled each other to claim him. The non-Matched female was soon chased off; the next fight took longer, and the loser sulkily retreated but did not flee, hoping to have another chance if Hookfang rejected her rival.

The winner, One Who Flits Elegantly, immediately turned to Hookfang and fought him. Frustration and annoyance, built up over so many days of his rejection, made her vicious, and Hookfang was covered in blood and whimpering in pain when she defeated him. _"MATCH?"_ she demanded, looking like she would kill him if he rejected her again.

 _"Y-Yes."_

She mated with him rather vengefully, and he was too emotionally drained to even inquire about their success at the end. After she had unlatched her jaws from his shoulder and waited in vain for him to ask, she finally just grabbed his hair and announced, _"One baby, female,"_ and even added on his behalf, _"You will be a good papa to our offspring."_ She smiled smugly as she let him go, her mouth gruesomely stained with his blood. _"Good strong baby. Next season, you will be willing and we will have four."_

 _"Maybe,"_ Hookfang mumbled sulkily. His mate got up and went away, exhaustion and relief slumping her shoulders as the last of her mating haze dissipated.

Snotlout was looking sick. "That was...not hot at all," he said weakly.

"Are you kidding, that was _totally_ hot," Ruffnut laughed.

Tuffnut shrugged. "I think it _would_ have been hot if I wasn't ace, but whatever."

The others were all gathering around Hookfang, Meatlug and Stormfly praising and comforting him as Toothless started to lick his wounds. Hiccup quickly fetched a med kit, shooed away the Night Fury and distractedly scolded him for being unhygienic, and took over treating the Nightmare's injuries with Fishlegs's help.

 _"I got the strongest, best female,"_ Hookfang was now boasting, having recovered from the shock of his more-violent-than-usual first mating. _"FIVE DAYS she chased me, she waited and waited and fought off ALL THOSE RIVALS, she beat_ _ **me**_ _the best strongest fireskin, our offspring will be_ _ **very**_ _good."_

 _"I told you,"_ Stormfly said affectionately as Meatlug stroked his cheek. _"You don't have to be afraid. You were caught by the best mate."_

Belch remarked, _"She hurt you more than she would have if you hadn't rejected her so much."_

 _"Who cares? Our baby will be good,"_ Hookfang huffed. _"And_ _ **you**_ _will help me, you promised!"_

 _To be concluded..._

Author's Notes: **Please note that I am NOT condoning abusive relationships. Monstrous Nightmares don't have the same standards as humans or even other dragon breeds when it comes to some issues.**

The way Hiccup (and other tech-savvy, partnered humans like Fishlegs) works with dragon chips is often overkill - Hiccup is always nice about it, and they let him because they love and trust him, but what he doesn't realize is that manipulating dragon chips for non-emergency reasons is, in some ways, kind of like grabbing someone, pinning them, pushing something into their hand and maneuvering their fingers to grip the thing, as opposed to just holding out the thing toward them so they can take it and handle it themselves, or at least teaching them how to handle the thing so they can do it themselves next time.

Another way to put it is if a Bewilderbeast were to resort to something as drastic as mind-controlling his flocklings for _everything_ , including mundane matters like "Hey, Toothless, it's your turn for guard duty," rather than just telling them.

(I need to edit "Valka's Dragon Sanctuary" a bit so that Valka is aware of this and can finally explain it to Hiccup. ...And then all the other stories that take place afterward. *facepalm*)

The dragons put up with it because they do like Hiccup in spite of it, and by the time they finally have enough vocabulary to explain properly, they're too used to being treated that way to remember to explain; and of course under their former queen, the Red Death deliberately abused them, so many of them don't know any different way to be treated.

Tuffnut is my token asexual in the HTTYDverse. (I pick what's useful from the TV show and discard the rest, and there is nothing in the movies to indicate that Tuff _isn't_ ace.)


	3. Born Unchained, chapter 3 (final)

_**Born Unchained**_ **, a DreamWorks'** _ **How to Train Your Dragon**_ **fanfic by Raberba girl**

 **Chapter 3 (rough draft)**

By the end of the week, the mating haze had fully dissipated, and life cautiously started returning to normal - at least, as normal as it could get with a city full of sleepy, hungry pregnant dragons and their protective mates. Hiccup was relieved to hear that the gestation period was only five months rather than nine, though it seemed unfortunate that the due dates happened to be right around Snoggletog.

As if holiday preparations and shopping weren't stressful enough on their own (Hiccup had an actual social life now and would be expected to put more effort into it, which he supposed was a reasonable price for actually _having_ a decent, not-lonely holiday for once), there were other things to worry about. In between school, his part-time job, working on his gift for Toothless, stressing out about his gift for Astrid, and trying to find the time to shop for his other...friends (at least, he hoped they were friends by now), Hiccup was also doing ridiculous amounts of research on pregnancy and babies, hoping that most of the stuff that worked for humans would also work for dragons. He was also intervening in human/dragon clashes.

A lot of this involved working with Hookfang. Now that the Monstrous Nightmare had given in and allowed himself to be claimed, he turned into a super-protective father, frequently kidnapping his mate and hiding her away and snarling at anyone, including Snotlout, who found him and approached. The only one he would allow near was his queen, though he would then turn fearful and clingy. He would crouch over Butterfly and hug her as Hiccup coaxed, until Hookfang was finally willing to let her go and come back home. He'd be all right for a little while, a few days or even a week or two, but then he'd leave Snotlout and snatch away his mate and start the whole thing all over again. Butterfly's strategy seemed to be to passively submit to the abductions and feedings, but then casually escape the instant Hookfang had to leave her for any reason, which drove him crazy.

"Hookfang, as far as we can tell, Butterfly is _very_ healthy and the baby is _very_ healthy, so you don't have to worry about them, okay? They're fine. There's still three months left, big guy, you think you can make it 'til then without freaking out?"

The whole flock was also still concerned about the Zipplebacks, many of them hovering over both the pregnant mothers and the unhatched eggs, anxiously inquiring about their health. So far, both types of babies seemed to be doing fine, but many Zipplebacks and other dragons still worried about the actual births and hatchings. Barf and Belch sometimes woke from nightmares, and had to reassure themselves by finding their mate and sensing their baby still alive and thriving.

Meatlug absolutely gloried in her pregnancy, pampered and fussed over by both Fishlegs and Axebreath. Fishlegs was very excited about his dragon's condition and the opportunity to document dragon reproduction, and since he doted on her anyway even when she wasn't pregnant, he was extra attentive now that she was. Axebreath was by turns ecstatic to be a father and terrified that he would fail in some way, so perhaps he went a little overboard in caring for his mate. Meatlug didn't mind, and was always generous with her reassurances.

When Stormfly was about halfway along, she lay in bed one night with her fingers twined in Astrid's hair, feeling rather maternal toward her human as well as her unborn offspring. Astrid lay curled up with her, head resting on the Nadder's belly, cheek touching skin as she 'listened' for the two tiny lives growing within. "Astrid," Stormfly said softly.

"Mm?"

"Your Hiccup that you love..."

Astrid shifted uncomfortably. "I told you, Stormfly, it's different for humans," she murmured.

There was a long pause. "You want His babies," Stormfly finally said.

"...Someday. Not yet. We're too young."

"Not too young."

"Not our bodies; I mean, just... Hiccup's got a lot on his plate right now, we're still working out the whole girlfriend/boyfriend thing and I doubt he's even _thinking_ about marriage, and I don't think it's a great idea yet, either..."

Stormfly sighed, unable to follow the stream of words.

"Someday," Astrid promised. "He's the only boy I've ever liked, so...my kids will probably be his. But not yet."

"Humans don't like dragon babies."

Astrid shifted so she could hug her. "No Stormfly, it's just...it's so different. We're not used to it yet." She kissed her temple. "It's okay, you didn't do anything wrong."

"Queen protects us," Stormfly said softly, "Astrid protects us..."

"It'll be okay. And in five years, when all this happens again, we'll know what to expect, and we'll be so used to you all by then that no one will bat an eye when you go looking for mates."

"Truespear is my good mate. No 'rape,' that bad thing."

"I know, Stormfly. I'm sorry. I was scared and confused, but it's okay now, I understand." She smiled. "He's been taking good care of you."

"My very good mate Truespear," Stormfly purred, "my good companion Astrid that I love, we will be good for these babies."

"Mm hm."

o.o.o.o.o

For some reason, the dragons scoffed at the idea of giving birth in Berk, but Hiccup still thought that preparations should be made to deliver hundreds of babies at the same time, anyway - it would be better to be over prepared than under.

Then, about a week before Snoggletog, all the dragons started rapidly disappearing.

Almost half the city was overjoyed or at least relieved, thinking that the dragons were gone forever. The rest of the Berkians were in a panic, swarming Hiccup and demanding to know where their dragons had gone.

"I don't _know_ , they didn't tell me! I assume they went back to their homeworld. Toothless, where are all the dragons going?" Toothless was one of the very few dragons who hadn't vanished.

"Babies."

"...Did they _go_ somewhere to have their babies?"

"Go babies."

Hiccup shook his head and turned back to the people pestering him for answers. "There, see? You know as much as I do."

As Stoick made a press release trying to simultaneously caution the dragon-haters and encourage the people who felt deserted by their dragons, Hiccup was supposed to be searching for the flock, but he was finishing up his gift for Toothless instead. When he ran the final test and was satisfied, he turned to the Night Fury with a smile. "Hey, Toothless."

"Go fly now?!" Toothless demanded instantly. "That bad BORING 'computer,' we go fly instead!"

"Yeah! Yeah, we'll go flying. That's my surprise for you, Toothless."

The dragon cocked his head.

"Look." Hiccup beckoned, opening the dragon's chip when Toothless sprawled against him.

"Hiccup," Toothless murmured, trying yet again to explain the magnitude of what Hiccup was so casually doing to him, "this chip, You come into _me_ , is very important thing You do, I let You because I love You."

"Love you, too, bud," Hiccup said absently as he worked to install the new sequence.

Toothless sighed a little and gave up. Hiccup had the right to his chain, and it wasn't a violation if he had permission, right?

Once the auto-fly sequence was installed, Hiccup stepped back and smiled in anticipation. "Okay, let's go outside, and then I'll show you what this thing does."

Toothless seemed excited about the new sequence until he realized that it was designed to allow him to fly on his own, without Hiccup. He froze, shocked.

"What do you think, Toothless?" Hiccup said proudly. "I couldn't fix the real damage, but I _did_ find a way to re-route some pathways for you, so now you should be able to-"

"Don't want me," Toothless whispered.

"What?"

"TWO HALVES, Hiccup!" Toothless exploded. "Fly me You _together_ , our wings, this _chip_ I HATE it, WRONG, You say no no no Toothless alone Toothless cut hurting half Toothless, no, nooooo!"

"Toothless! Toothless, calm down, bud, just let me-"

Toothless vanished.

Hiccup stared at the empty spot where the dragon had been, breathing hard. "Okay...okay, he just...went wherever all the other dragons went...he'll be back when they're done doing...whatever they're doing." He swallowed hard. _'I messed up.'_

The next few days were some of the loneliest Hiccup had ever known. He thought he had been miserable before Toothless, but back then, even though he'd always longed to be part of a group, he hadn't really understood what he was missing. Now, having finally experienced camaraderie and friendship and companionship and unconditional love, it hurt that much more to lose it.

The ordeal of the nights, however, were quickly starting to eclipse the dull misery of the days. Hiccup started fearing to go to sleep, because he was plagued by terrible, gut-wrenching nightmares that got worse every time. At first he dreamed that Meatlug was in danger, screaming desperately for help; locked in a cage, buried alive, agonizing over her dead children. Hiccup was always glad when he jerked awake and remembered that Meatlug was gone with all the others, most likely safe and sound.

But then he began dreaming about the Red Death, which terrified him so much that he would stay up all night trying to avoid sleep, but then the monster would pounce on him as soon as he nodded off, exhausted, during the day.

Then it was an army of Red Deaths and, for some reason, Fishlegs, rotting blood-drenched giants, crushing Berk and crushing people and crushing Meatlug and crushing Hiccup, babies, _babies, my dead babies, crushed drowning buried, save me, save our flock, save us, save us, SAVE US...!_

Hiccup jerked awake, soaked with sweat and gasping for breath. He got up from the couch and went straight to Fishlegs's house. "Where's Meatlug."

"Hiccup! I, uh, what a pleasant surprise-"

"WHERE IS MEATLUG."

"Ummmm...well, all the dragons left, so..."

Hiccup found her unconscious in bed, whimpering in her sleep, tears staining her face, and he soon discovered that she was being forced asleep by a sequence on her chip. "WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER?!"

"I-I didn't do anything! I just didn't want her to leave me like all the others-"

Hiccup deleted the sequence. Meatlug instantly burst awake, screaming, then seized Hiccup and transitioned.

When he opened his eyes, he felt like he was being suffocated. He soon realized that that was because Meatlug was in her true form, a giant slug-shaped rock lying right on top of him. She would have crushed him to death if she hadn't molded herself around him, but it was still a very claustrophobic feeling to be trapped almost entirely inside a rock. "Meatlug! Meatlug, let me go!"

It was about fifteen minutes before she finally, slowly transformed. In her mythic form, she pressed against Hiccup and shivered, so he pet her and murmured reassurances to her until she finally recovered, licking him and then trundling off on dragon business.

He had realized by this time that he was in the dragons' homeworld, near a small, still lake with gray-leaved trees that resembled willows. The sky was still dark and smoky, but the dimness seemed more peaceful than ominous now. The missing flock had apparently gathered here, most of them in either their mythic or their Berk forms, surrounded by babies in wildly varying bodies.

"Oh my gosh, you guys are so cute...you are soooo cute," Hiccup crooned, kneeling to pet some curious little creatures who came romping over to him. Most of them started to examine him, turned into human babies, wiggled uncomfortably, burst into tears or screams, then transformed back to different bodies. "Heh, yeah, human newborns are pretty helpless, huh..."

"Hiccup," a familiar voice called.

Hiccup burst into a smile and ran to where Hookfang, in his Berk body, was proudly cradling a tiny creature in his arms, with Butterfly in mythic form curled up comfortably beside him. "Hookfang!"

"Look, Queen, look at my VERY SO MUCH GOOD baby! Look! DON'T TOUCH!"

"She's _beautiful_ , Hookfang," Hiccup said, obligingly putting his hands behind his back. "You're a father!"

"My good baby that I made!"

Hiccup sensed someone approaching, and turned to find Stormfly carrying her own little ones. "Stormfly!" She smiled at him in a way that was both shy and apprehensive. Truespear had his arms wrapped tightly around her and was staring at Hiccup, looking frightened for some reason. "Can I look at them?" Hiccup asked.

"Yes, Queen," Stormfly said softly, offering her babies to him, looking as tender and sad as if she was giving them away forever. "Yours."

"I'm just looking, Stormfly, I won't hurt them," he assured her. He smiled at the two infants, one of them turning into a lizard who tried to climb awkwardly up his shirt, the other morphing into what looked like a cloud and felt like a dense bundle of feathers. "Wowww... What are their names?" Hiccup looked up and was surprised to see all the dragons staring at him intently, clutching their babies in a protective way. Truespear looked like he was dying, and Hiccup wondered if he was doing something wrong.

Stormfly caressed her son and said, still in that soft voice, _"One Who Is Sweet."_ She cupped a hand around her daughter. _"One Who Is Cold."_ Her eyes met Hiccup's again. "Sweet and Cold, my babies, Yours."

"Sweet and-? You named them after _ice cream_?" Hiccup exclaimed. He laughed, but quickly sobered when he realized how deadly serious everyone remained. "I'm sorry. They're very good names, Stormfly." He was surprised when tears came into her eyes. Truespear was now hiding his face against her as if he couldn't bear to watch anymore.

"Queen," Stormfly whispered, "You will...You will chip our babies?"

"What?"

"Chain... They are small, You are big; they must submit, You are master; hurt them, force them...chip?"

"Chip? Hurt them, no, I-" He felt a stab of horror when he suddenly realized what she was asking. "Stormfly! I'm not going to implant chips in your babies. Of course not!" He hastily handed Sweet and Cold back to their mother. She held them tightly and sank to the ground, her mate along with her, both of them weeping in relief.

Hookfang seized Hiccup. "No chip?" he demanded, "NONE?" With a fierce look, he raised his head and reached for the chip behind his ear, the device that had been implanted in his brain when he'd been very young and could control almost everything about him. "These _bad things_ , Queen, You like them, You will put them in our babies?"

"No, Hookfang! I wouldn't do that!" Before he could explain that, fascinating as he thought the dragons' computer chips were, he recognized their inherent cruelty and would never force them on anyone, Hookfang was snatching up his child again and shoving her into Hiccup's arms. "Claim, Queen," he said triumphantly. "Claim with _love_ , not these bad _chips_ ; Yours; MINE!"

The mythic Monstrous Nightmare hatchling in Hiccup's arms curiously took human form, screamed her displeasure, then sulkily shifted into a mass of fangs. Hookfang put his own arms around Hiccup and squeezed tightly. "Good good good good good," he purred. The baby started rattling in a demanding sort of way. Butterfly stepped close and grunted; Hookfang scooped the baby back out of Hiccup's arms and lovingly handed her over to be fed.

"I would never, ever hurt your babies," Hiccup assured the crowd in general, who were now looking relieved and joyful, many of them offering their new children to Hiccup for him to hold and admire.

Once Hookfang's daughter had finished feeding, she stumbled back to Hiccup and tried to climb up him until he crouched and picked her up. She made her way up his arm and settled across his shoulders, purring, before she lost her balance and fell. Hiccup managed to catch her, but her dignity was ruffled and she rushed to hide sulkily with her father. He cuddled her, beaming.

"She's amazing," Hiccup said. "What's her name?"

"Snotlout! Name is..." Hookfang thought a moment, trying to think how to translate 'One Who Won't Shut Up.' "Loud, talk talk talk, not quiet!"

"Loudmouth?" Hiccup laughed. "Her name is Loudmouth?"

"Loudmouth! Snotlout!"

"You named her after _Snotlout_?" Hiccup laughed even harder, but added affectionately, "He'll love that." Hookfang smirked.

Hiccup soon found Barf and Belch with their mate and their offspring, who was apparently one person despite being twin boys: Ones Who Slay Tyrants And Rule Strangers, named after Hiccup. The Zipplebacks had cautiously started out letting Queenslayer and Crownseizer feed only from the respective female that had given birth to each of them, but it was soon discovered that not only would the babies nurse interchangeably, but Barf could feed them as well, since any mammalian body she shifted into would lactate despite the fact that she had not carried her son(s) in her womb.

Meatlug, in her Berk body, eventually found Hiccup again, now accompanied by Axebreath. The two of them were proudly carrying four soccer-ball-sized rocks, which turned into human babies and then into mythic hatchlings who curiously crawled and buzzed all over Hiccup. "They're adorable, Meatlug," Hiccup cooed as one of the plump, big-eyed Gronckle babies licked him.

"Very much _thank You_ , Queen," Meatlug said, hugging him. "I was trapped trapped trapped! I called help help help, asked my queen for help, Hiccup came and made me FREE, I came to hatch my good babies in this world, _thank You_!"

"I'm sorry I didn't figure it out sooner. Do you guys have to have your babies here or something?"

"Babies here?" Meatlug thought, trying to figure out what he was asking. "Babies must born in _not_ Berk, _not_ those real worlds. Not! Must be here, these dream worlds, dream babies in dream worlds." She eventually managed to convey every dragon mother's worst fear, that she might be trapped in a physical world to give birth. Such offspring had a chance of being born as Dream Masters, powerful beings who could be benevolent, but could also grow corrupt like the Red Death and abuse the flocklings they were given.

"The Red- Wait, so you're saying if you'd given birth at home, your kids might have been _Red Deaths_?!"

"You saved me, Hiccup," she said gratefully. "Our good not-monster not-Master queen." She picked up her firstborn son and held him up with a smile. _"One Who Breaks Chains."_ Then in Norse, "Break Chains, You. His name is You."

"You...you named him after me? His name is Chainbreaker?"

Meatlug nuzzled him.

"Wow... _Two_ kids named after me, that's...kind of blowing my mind..."

"Names of important people." Axebreath was so happy to be a father that he had named one of their daughters after his mate, and Meatlug liked her small, kind mate so much that she had named their other son after him.

Hiccup eventually did find Toothless, but it didn't take long for him to figure out that he was in trouble. He could tell that Toothless was the giant, truck-sized black cat staring at him from the fringes of the group, but when Hiccup approached, Toothless turned away and hunched down in a clear sulking pose. Hiccup hesitated, then circled around toward his head. "Hey, bud."

Toothless seized him with sharp cat teeth. Being held helpless by a giant fanged predator was frightening, but Toothless hadn't drawn blood. It was a warning.

"I...I know you're mad at me...I don't really know why, but-" The pressure increased, and Hiccup gulped. Still no blood, but it really hurt now. He didn't dare struggle, so he just stayed still and thought instead. "...You like being dependent on me?" he guessed. There was no response. "Toothless... I was trying to give you a _gift_ , you know. I... It's my fault you got damaged, I hurt you so badly that no one can ever really fix it, and I just wanted...I just wanted to pretend that everything was okay again, that I hadn't...that I hadn't _maimed_ my best friend for life."

Toothless let go, turned into a winged but otherwise normal-looking tiger, and rested his head on Hiccup, sighing in a bored way. "I...I wanted to pretend..." Hiccup buried his face in his arms. "I wanted to erase my mistakes," he whispered. "I wanted to pretend they never happened, but...but the best things in my life happened _because_ I screwed up so much, and...and they wouldn't have happened otherwise, and...and you thought I was trying to erase _you_." He felt Toothless transform again, and looked up to see Toothless in a fully human body.

"Hiccup is sorry?" Toothless demanded.

Hiccup reached to set a hand on his shoulder, as if pleading with him to stay and not run off. "I'm sorry."

"We fly _together_. You are my wings, I am Your wings."

"Yeah... Yes. Yes, we've always been best like that, huh."

Toothless shifted back to Berk form, reached for his chip, deleted the new auto-fly sequence, brought up the copy of the previous flying sequence he had saved when Hiccup had deleted the original, and waited for Hiccup to authorize it.

"You sure?" Hiccup asked.

"SURE. We fly now, Hiccup!"

o.o.o.o.o

When they returned from their flight, dragons began coming up to show Hiccup their babies. He smiled and praised and cuddled the infants at first, but as more and more and more kept coming, he started trying to put a stop to it. "Okay...okay, look, guys, all of you have wonderful, beautiful children, but that's enough now. Show me when we get home, okay?"

Babies continued to be thrust into his arms, more and more urgently the more he tried to extricate himself.

"Guys! Look, you can send me pictures or something, but I'm finished now, okay? I can look at the babies later, but right now I need to get home and explain to everyone what's going on."

They would have none of it. Baby after baby after baby was offered to him, forcefully if he tried to refuse, and Toothless, rather than helping him, insisted that he hold each and every single new child. "Toothless, I'm _tired_! I am _literally_ getting tired, I _can't_ hold _every single baby_ that was born today!"

"OUR BABIES, HICCUP. YOU ARE QUEEN. _CLAIM_."

When Hiccup tried to make a run for it, Toothless caught him and held his arms firmly, maneuvering them to continue the strange work. Hiccup finally gave up and stopped struggling. He got so tired that he eventually fell asleep, but he continued to hold babies in his dreams. Realizing that he was lucid dreaming and that it was still happening on some level, he changed his body so that he had ten arms, which none of the dragons showed any objection to. It did help, but there were still _so many left_ , baby after baby after baby after baby...

After what seemed like years of this, and then of crazy ordinary dreams and nightmares, and then perhaps nothing, he woke up to find himself in a hospital bed.

"Hiccup!"

Hiccup looked around blearily and found Astrid, Fishlegs, Stormfly, Meatlug, and their new families all squeezed into the hospital room. Hiccup cringed away from the sight of the babies and found that Toothless was curled up with him on the bed.

"Hiccup, are you okay?" Astrid asked, taking his hand and resting her other palm on his forehead.

"Is this real?" Hiccup asked weakly.

"Yeah. Toothless brought you when all the dragons came back, but you were unconscious..."

"You slept for 15 hours straight, Hiccup!" Fishlegs piped up. "At least, after you came home; I don't know how long you were asleep before. According to the brain monitors, you were having lucid dreams for about 5 of those hours. Were you in any dream worlds?"

Hiccup groaned, too tired to pull off the electrodes he could now feel stuck to his head.

"How do you feel, Hiccup?" Astrid asked.

"Like I just hugged hundreds and hundreds of babies..."

Awake but still resting for a while, Hiccup explained to Astrid and Fishlegs what had happened. "Maybe it's a sort of claiming process," Fishlegs mused. "You _are_ their leader, and they're all technically new members of the flock, so maybe it was an initiation thing?"

"Huh. Maybe..."

"Everyone was really glad to get their dragons back, Hiccup," Astrid said. "And the _babies_!" She herself was cradling little Cold at the moment.

Hiccup smiled cautiously. "They're cute when you don't have to hug every single one of them."

"We thought they all had colic for a couple of days," Astrid chuckled. "That was a nightmare. Those jerks who haven't come around yet were making some nasty suggestions for what to do about it... It turned out that the kids just needed time to get used to their new bodies."

"They can transform however they want in dream worlds," Hiccup said. "Humanoid bodies aren't their favorite, so I guess they weren't very happy getting stuck like this."

"We've been doing tests and stuff," Fishlegs said eagerly. "The Zipplebacks are _fascinating_. Did you know that _all_ the Zippleback babies, like each set of them, are identical twins, genetically?!"

"We knew that already, Legs. Even Barf and Belch are genetically identical."

"But I mean, even if there were two moms with singleton births rather than just one mom with twins, there's still always two identical babies."

"Fishlegs, you were there when they were explaining how true-form Zipplebacks mate. The kids are the same person, of course they're identical."

"Yeah, but my theory is that there's some kind of true-form trait that's being lost, or that's getting translated weird or something when they shape-shift. The identical twins thing doesn't make sense unless biological sex is standing in for something _else_."

"Huh... Yeah, I guess you have a point."

Hiccup recovered from his ordeal and managed to make it home in time for Snoggletog. Stoick, who had been worried about him, had a hard time believing that Hiccup had been hospitalized due to excessive baby-hugging, so Hiccup started letting him believe that he'd assisted with the births instead.

For several days, Hiccup was hailed in the streets by grateful, affectionate dragon parents. Hiccup didn't really understand why - _he_ had nothing to do with their mating, after all - until Astrid took his hand and said, "Stormfly keeps pulling me into her nightmares by accident. They were so, so scared, _unbelievably_ scared, that their kids would be...chained up, I guess. Her nightmares are about chains. They were hurt so badly when they were so little, but now that they have a safe home, now that they know they can have children whose leader will love them and won't...and won't do anything awful to them...it really means a lot to them, Hiccup. You're the reason they can _enjoy_ having children now."

"I really didn't do anything, though...we all took down the Red Death together, it wasn't like I..." He trailed off as he looked at her. "So I did good, right? Did I earn a reward-kiss?"

She smiled and kissed him. "Yes."

When she started to pull back, both of them were startled when hands clamped down on them to keep them close together. " _You_ make babies now!" Toothless demanded. "Court court court court _when will you stop courting_?! This your mating haze is _annoying_ , mate and it will go away!"

"Ack, Toothless, no, it doesn't work like that for humans, let go...!"

o.o.o

Author's Notes: I sometimes find myself consciously or unconsciously paying homage to my favorite authors... In this case, **the idea of a shape-shifting baby preferring a more capable body to a more helpless human body is from Diana Wynne Jones.**

The stuff about Hiccup unknowingly being forced to mark all the new babies in his flock is a HSRMO version of my one-shot _Induction_. Someday, if I ever get any ideas, I might write a fic taking place around the same time as the end of this fic that actually focuses on Snoggletog, but right now I cared more about the dragon offspring aspect.

I made a big chart to figure out how often dragon mating seasons happened, and realized that there would actually be one every five years. Stormfly's generation (let's theoretically label them "Generation 9") won't be participating in the next mating season because they'll still be busy raising their first batch of kids, but other generations (theoretically, Generations 6, 8, and 10) will be ready to mate.

 _Born Unchained_ is now complete, but I have at least two more HSRMO dragon procreation fics in mind, one of them focused on Toothless and the other one focused on Freefall. (I started writing the Toothless one a long time ago, but hit a roadblock because I made a mistake that will be a pain to fix.) I'll try to fit my other ideas into those fics, but if I can't, I might do some vignettes.

In the meantime, I'm going to try to buckle down and resume work on "dhas." My momentum on that fic lasted for such an unusually long time that I'd _hoped_ I'd actually be able to finish. I will be annoyed with myself if I get truly distracted away from that story after I'd been doing so well for so long!


End file.
